Running the Gauntlet
by Lyndotia
Summary: AlistairxHuman Noble Warden. Alistair tells the story of how he met and fell for Nalissa Cousland and their adventures in the Fifth Blight. An attempt to tell the untold parts of their story. Will obviously contain some spoilers, but I will try my best to avoid the actual canon scenes and/or gloss over them to show what I think happened in between.
1. The Meeting

When I first met Nalissa Cousland, neither of us were really at our best. She was all but lost in the camp at Ostagar and I was being penned into a very awkward situation with a mage that was all too aware I had once trained as a templar.

I got a little snippier than I should have, but it was all in good fun. Unfortunately, most of the mages that had come to the front lines didn't really seem to have a sense of humor.

Nalissa did, though, because when I turned to her with a sarcastic observation, she shot a sarcastic reply right back. And it was right around then that I realized I had no idea who in the world I was talking to.

Once she introduced herself, we set off back through the camp, trying to make small talk on the way. But I'm pretty bad at that, and since I had already told her about my upbringing in the Chantry, I made the grand decision to ask where she was from.

There was a moment's pause before she replied that she was from Highever, and of course I remained completely oblivious to the fact that that _might_ mean she didn't want to talk about it.

"Oh, Highever? I think that's where Duncan's from too. Did you know him there?"

"I… didn't really leave the castle much unless we were traveling to Denerim or one of the bannorns."

That threw me off a little. "The castle? Did you work for the teyrn?"

Nalissa tried to smile, and finally I saw the sadness in it. "No, I can't say my father really let me do a lot of work."

"Your father? What do you…" I looked at her again, and this time I saw it. The pale skin, the smooth raven hair, the way she carried herself as if she were used to crowds parting before her—how had I missed that she was bred from nobility? "You're Teyrn Cousland's _daughter_."

She looked away, seeming to inspect the studs in the leather of her gauntlets. "It doesn't matter. I'll be a Warden now, nothing more."

I sensed I should probably let it drop, but curiosity got the better of me. "Did you not want to be a Warden?"

If anything, that just made her smile turn sadder. "No, I did. I'm the youngest and a girl, so my father would leave me at home to manage the castle while he rode with my brother. I hated having to wait with the servants, not able to help if they needed an extra blade, just listening for weeks to Mother trying to convince me to marry Arl So-and-So's son and give her more grandchildren."

"But you miss it," I said, probably unnecessarily.

"More than I knew I could miss anything."

I didn't know what to say to that, but then we reached Duncan's fire and I was too busy being embarrassed that my mentor had found out about my conversation with the mage to try to figure it out.


	2. The Joining

There was no time for talking in the Korcari Wilds, only action, and there was plenty of that to go around. Daveth proved pretty useful with a bow and Jory tore down darkspawn with his giant sword, but it was Nalissa that surprised me most. I had seen no rogue but Duncan ever fight so well with two blades, equal parts tactics and skill. I couldn't imagine where she had learned that if her father had never let her leave the castle.

Despite being a woman, she became the defacto leader of the three recruits. I wasn't sure why Daveth deferred to her, but Jory could hardly look in her direction without calling her "my lady."

Nalissa was the only one not intimidated by the sudden appearance of Morrigan, and the one brave enough to ask to be brought to the scrolls Duncan had asked us to find. I wasn't the only one impressed with her conduct, either. On the way back to Ostagar, as Nalissa was calmly carrying on conversation with Morrigan that was apparently about poisonous plants, Daveth nudged Jory and nodded at her.

"Fancy that, the little lady of Highever just walking straight up to an apostate and saying hello! Now, that's my kind of woman!"

I had to suppress a laugh at that, because it made me imagine just how Nalissa might react if she somehow overheard them.

But the laughter ended when we made it back to Duncan's place at the fire. He didn't seem concerned about apostates running loose in the Wilds, though it may just have been that the Joining was more pressing. I led the recruits to the old temple, wondering as we walked if they would make it out alive.

The worst thing about being the junior member of the order hadn't been leading them into the Korcari Wilds; it was this, leading them to the ritual that could be their doom.

I hadn't liked Daveth, and I hadn't understood why Duncan had conscripted him, but watching the taint take him was still awful. Then Jory's courage failed and he tried to fight his way out, only to die on Duncan's blade. I could understand the horrified look on Nalissa's face when Duncan turned to her with the chalice. I almost wouldn't have blamed her if she had thrown it to the ground. But I think she knew there was no way out, because her jaw set when she took that goblet and drank deeply of the tainted brew within.

She was out cold for nearly a minute, but her breathing never failed. When she finally opened her eyes, Duncan welcomed her as a Warden and I tried to reassure her with a story of how horrible my own Joining had been.

Still though, Nalissa seemed to hold herself together well. Perhaps one of the lessons she had been taught in court with the nobles was to not let weakness show, or maybe she really was that undaunted.

Either way, she followed Duncan to a meeting with the king while I wrapped up the last of my duties before the battle. By the time I returned, it had somehow been decided that I was delegated to a little more than make-work job lighting a beacon on the Tower of Ishal.

Nalissa was to accompany me, and she didn't seem any more pleased by it than I did. But of course Duncan wouldn't relent, and I couldn't help wondering if he might have planted this idea in King Cailan's head to start with.

There was a loud bark right behind me that made me jump so hard my armor rattled. I tried to play it off as a spontaneous movement, but the smile that crept across Nalissa's face told me she knew.

"About time you showed up, Dante," she said with a grin. A great tan beast with a black snout trotted over to her and barked conversationally, wagging his stump of a tail. She had a Mabari warhound, too? I had always wanted one, but they weren't allowed in the Chantry.

"I could hardly keep him away," Duncan said with a chuckle. "It was all the kennelmaster could do to distract him for a few hours."

"Dante's been mine since he was a pup," Nalissa said, scratching the dog's ear until he rolled over on his back and she laughed. "He was actually supposed to be my older brother's, but the Mabari is the one that makes the choice. He doesn't like me being away."

"Mabari are very selective in choosing a master," Duncan agreed. "Perhaps he saw something in you that your brother lacked. Whatever the case, he will be a good ally for you both tonight."

As if he understood exactly what had been said, Dante trotted over to me. "Alistair's a friend," Nalissa told him, and the warhound sniffed my hand before barking sharply.

"See, he likes you," Nalissa said, though I wasn't entirely sure she hadn't misunderstood the dog's intentions.

"You should get to the Tower of Ishal," Duncan advised. "The battle will be beginning soon."

That sobered us up immediately, and we nodded and began the walk toward the battlements. Only Dante didn't seem to understand the gravity of the situation, because he ran ahead of us to greet the warhound of every Ash Warrior that crossed our path.

As we got closer to the edge of the fortress, we could see the lights of thousands of torches glowing from the Wilds. Nalissa stopped and drew a deep breath. "What… do you think the chances are?"

"With the Wardens on the front lines and Loghain's strategy?" I paused and reminded myself to be honest. "Not amazing or anything, but pretty good."

She nodded slowly. "Nothing better than the element of surprise."

I grinned. "Now you sound like a rogue."

The ground shook with the force of the Darkspawn war cries, and Dante's hackles raised as he growled. We hurried forward from there, but by the time we reached the battlements, the fighting had already begun. Arrows and fireballs flew, shattering stone and killing on contact, and that was the path we had to take to the tower.

"Hurry!" I urged, but Nalissa was already sprinting with Dante on her heels. Once, a stone projectile missed my head by inches. Once, a blast of fire knocked Nalissa flat on her back. Before I could reach her to check if she was okay, Dante was already nudging her to her feet.

We kept running; it was all we could do from here. I expected the chaos to lessen when we approached the tower, but then we heard the screams.

We saw the darkspawn first, relatively small groups of them compared to the horde down below, but still I couldn't fathom how they had already penetrated our defenses. It wasn't like we could ask them, so we launched ourselves into their midst and cut down as many as we could. Then a mage from the Circle came running down the tower steps.

"The tower is overrun!" he yelled, pointing up at it with his staff. "The darkspawn—they came out of the ground!"

I shook my head in disbelief. "The king needs that signal or Loghain's men won't know when to charge!"

"Then we'll just have to clear them out," Nalissa said grimly.

The mage nodded and turned to face the tower. As we stood there at the bottom of the steps, a horrible dread coursed through me. It was three of us and a Mabari against who knew how many darkspawn, but if we fell, so would Ostagar.


	3. The Aftermath

The Tower of Ishal was something out of a nightmare. It was floor after floor of live darkspawn and dead soldiers with a hole in the stone that probably went all the way to the Deep Roads and an ogre at the top, munching on the flesh of a dead guardian. Every bit of it was too much, but there was nothing to do but keep fighting. And so when I finally sank my blade into the creature's skull and all the way to the stone beneath it, it was a relief I couldn't begin to explain.

"We made it," I breathed as I climbed off the monster and looked around the room. We were all spattered with the black blood of the darkspawn, and I couldn't help thinking that couldn't be healthy for the mage or Nalissa's Mabari, but against all odds we were still alive.

There was no flint near the beacon, but Nalissa wrenched a torch off the wall and lit it with that. The tinder caught and was soon a blaze, large enough to be seen from anywhere on the battlefield. I just hoped it was soon enough.

"Now what?" the mage asked, looking warily toward the door that led to the stairs. "Do we fight our way back down? They'll just keep coming!"

"We made it up here," Nalissa said firmly. "I'm not about to—"

Whatever she was about to say was lost in the sound of the door being broken down. I raised my shield just in time, but the others didn't have one. The mage sprouted an arrow in his throat and went down. Two more hit Nalissa in the chest; I couldn't tell if they penetrated her armor or if the force alone knocked her down, but there was no time to check. I threw myself forward into the mass of darkspawn with the warhound at my heels, but there were too many. I cut down three or four, but their sheer numbers overwhelmed me and I fell back into blackness.

* * *

When I started to wake up, the first thing I wondered was why it smelled like cabbage and feet. Surely the realm of the Maker couldn't be so foul. Or perhaps I had failed to prove myself worthy of a place at His side and part of that punishment was to smell something putrid for eternity. Maybe the Fade always smelled like rotten cabbages and that was why mages were always so cranky.

Then I opened my eyes and was even more confused. I had definitely never heard the Fade described like the inside of a worn-down shack, but I was pretty sure that was what I was looking at. Had the Wardens somehow won the battle in time to save me? That seemed unlikely, but I couldn't think of a better explanation.

"Well, well," sang an oddly condescending voice. "Up already, are you? It seems I gave you too little credit."

That made me shake the grogginess off, let me tell you. I sat straight up only to see the same witch of the Wilds that we had met in the ruins… and right after that was when I realized that my armor was gone and I was staring down an apostate in my small clothes.

"Maker's breath! Wh-what the—"

Morrigan rolled her eyes. "I shall take your stammering to mean 'you're welcome.'"

"For what?!" I demanded, grabbing a blanket that seemed to be serving as the bed beneath me and yanking part of it over my lap. "What did you do?!"

"True, I did nothing. Mother was the one—"

"Your _mother_?!"

"Of course! _I_ couldn't have gotten you off that tower."

"What?" Then it clicked and I breathed an internal sigh of relief. "Oh, thank the Maker."

Morrigan narrowed her eyes at me. "And what did you think I meant?"

"Nothing," I said quickly, hurrying to steer the conversation away. "Just what do you mean, your _mother_ pulled me off the tower? Why would she do that? _How_ would she do that?"

"I'm sure I have no idea," Morrigan assured me, which I believed because she looked just as curious as I did. "She returned here with the both of you, healed your wounds—"

"And that's where my armor went," I deduced. "Wait, the both of us? Do you mean Nalissa?"

I finally looked around the room and then I saw her—on a bed by the far wall, wearing just as little as I was and lying perfectly still. Instantly, my eyes shot back up to the thatched roof and I tried to concentrate on keeping my face from burning. Whatever state she was in, I had no right to look at a woman while she was like that.

"Is, er, she okay?" I managed to ask.

"If ever you would allow me to finish a sentence, perhaps I could tell you!" Morrigan snapped, crossing her arms in annoyance. She didn't explain, though; instead she saw fit to stare me down and smirk. "Are you _blushing_? Surely you've seen a woman before!"

That probably just made my face turn redder, so I tried to pretend it was indignance. "Would you answer the question!"

Judging by the look on her face, Morrigan sorely wanted to press the issue but she relented with a sigh. "Your comrade's injuries were more severe. She has not awoken yet. A shame too, as I suspect that feral beast at the door won't stop whining until he sees her. Still, 'tis a better fate than the rest of your fellows."

If fear were a living thing, I swear in that moment it gripped my chest in an icy cold fist. "Wh-what do you mean by that?"

"Your battle was lost and your fortress taken," Morrigan said, and my head spun at the flat tone she used to say it. It didn't match with the thousands of lives that must have been lost for that to happen. It didn't reflect the rivers of blood that would have been spilled. To speak of people so dismissively was inhuman. I must have heard wrong.

"What… did you say?"

"You were sorely outnumbered; you certainly couldn't have expected more," Morrigan said in a matter-of-fact voice that for the first time in my life made me consider striking a woman. I couldn't fathom what was going through her head.

"But Loghain's charge should have given them a break in the enemy lines! Surely some must have escaped—Duncan—the king—"

"Some withdrew," Morrigan admitted, and I had a spark of hope until she continued, "though I suspect not all went according to your plan. When you lit your signal beacon, the man who was to respond quit the field. I know not of this Duncan, but word has already begun to spread that your king is dead."

I could feel my brain stagger trying to process the words she had just said. They made no sense in the order she had said them. "That—that can't be right! Loghain would never abandon the king! Cailan is his daughter's husband!"

Morrigan shook her head. "Mother mentioned this treachery specifically. Daughter or no, so he did."

"But the Wardens," I began, but Morrigan cut me off.

"Those standing by the king fell with him."

I knew I should be shocked, but all I could feel was anger. "Are you standing there and telling me everyone I know is dead with a straight face?!"

"_You_ are alive!" Morrigan said indignantly. "_She_ is alive, for a time!" She gestured at Nalissa while still glaring at me. "The two of you are the Grey Wardens now!"

All my anger suddenly melted away and I looked over at Nalissa again, being careful to focus only on her face. She wasn't moving; I couldn't see her draw any breaths and her eyes were still beneath their lids, not moving as they would have been if she were only asleep. Morrigan had said her wounds were worse, and if she didn't wake up… I was completely alone.

It couldn't be real, that Duncan was gone. Nothing could fell him, not darkspawn, not ogres… but I remembered him telling me that his time was soon, and I swallowed back a lump in my throat.

I realized Morrigan had probably been glaring at me and waiting for a comeback for a while, but I had none to give. I settled for asking, "Where's my armor?"

She pointed me toward a stack of books in one corner where my splintmail glinted in the firelight. I pulled it toward me and she nodded. "Finally you act like a Grey Warden of legend!"

I pulled on my trousers quickly so I wasn't standing before her mostly naked and shook my head. "If I'm all that's left, there are no Grey Wardens."

Morrigan stared and then threw her hands up in the air. "Fine! Wallow in misery as the Blight descends! I do not have to bear witness!"

She left, though I could hear her swearing at Nalissa's Mabari to get away from the door as she opened it. It was strange how little comfort it was to be left alone to dress myself. But then I supposed there were not going to be any more comforting thoughts after this.


	4. The Road

I'll spare you the part that followed—it was mostly just a lot of morosely staring out at murky swamp water, anyway. After a while, Dante came to sit beside me and in my gloom, I imagined it must have been because the only other Grey Warden in Ferelden had died and I was left completely alone.

So when the sun started to set and the door of the hut opened, I expected it to be Morrigan, come to berate me again. I almost jumped out of my skin when the voice saying my name was Nalissa's.

"You're alive!" I gasped as Dante bolted toward her to nuzzle her leg. I hope I imagined the smug look the Mabari gave me then, as if he had known all along that she would be fine. Warhounds couldn't give superior looks, right?

"Thanks to Morrigan's mother," she said dryly, and we both looked over at the old hag in question. I was surprised enough when she saw fit to try to marshal us into a team against the Blight, but even more so when she insisted we take her daughter with us.

I couldn't begin to understand how that could possibly be a good idea, but Nalissa didn't seem opposed as long as Morrigan was okay with it. When I asked her if she was out of her mind—well, a little more nicely than that, I hope—she just looked me in the eyes and gently said that even Duncan had valued the help of mages on the battlefield.

That shut me up for most of the day. Morrigan noticed and had a lovely time making fun of me for it as we walked. Nalissa kept trying to deflect and change the subject, but somehow the blighted witch always seemed to find a way to bring their conversation back around.

In one of the rare moments of silence, Nalissa sighed heavily and Morrigan demanded, "Am I now to watch you lament your fate as well?"

Nalissa must have had the patience of Andraste, because instead of sniping back at the she-demon like I would have, she merely shook her head. "I wasn't lamenting my own fate. I just had rather hoped to find my brother. He left for Ostagar a day before… a day before Duncan and I."

There it was again, that strange hesitation around talking about her family. This time I kept my mouth shut, lost in my own regrets, but Morrigan wasn't so kind.

"I do not understand why you would presume he is not simply dead with the others."

Maybe it was my imagination, but I think Nalissa actually flinched a little at that. "Because I don't want to," she said a little bitterly. "Because I would much rather imagine that around the next bend, I'm going to find him collapsed in the dirt, wounded but alive. Because he was sent on a scouting mission before the battle began, so maybe he escaped somehow. Because I've had enough of everyone around me dying."

"Then I believe you are in the wrong line of work," Morrigan said, though to her credit at least she didn't laugh this time.

"Very well then; do you want to trade?" Nalissa snapped. "I daresay some forbidden magic and complete lack of any human emotion might come in handy right about now. You can have the darkspawn, the death sentence in two or three decades, and the blighted headaches."

Morrigan huffed and muttered, "I knew the 'speak your mind' invitation would be very limited." I frowned and finally remembered to speak.

"Headaches? Have you been having them for a while?"

Nalissa shrugged and said dryly, "Well, I woke up with one after the Joining and I woke up with one after being shot and dragged off a tower, so I'm not entirely sure they're connected."

"They probably are," I said, stopping to rummage around in my pack. "You can't really sense the darkspawn yet, but because there are so many of them, your body is still trying. It gave me terrible headaches after my Joining, and the darkspawn weren't even as close or as numerous as they are now. Ah, here we are!"

I pulled a small poultice pot from the bag, and Morrigan rolled her eyes. "A health poultice will not heal a headache."

I shot her a look that I was pretty sure contained the beginnings of hatred. "I'll remember that the next time you need one for a head wound. This isn't a regular healing poultice! One of the senior Wardens made it for me for exactly this reason. She was an herbalist they recruited as a medic, so I think she probably had a better grasp of what does and doesn't help _Grey Wardens_ than you."

"The dog would have a better grasp of that than _you_," Morrigan shot back, but I ground my teeth and ignored her for once.

"Here, hold still," I told Nalissa as I removed the lid of the jar. The salve inside was thick and swirled in two shades of green, and smelled pungently of mint and something sharper I had always been a bit too afraid to identify.

Nalissa eyed the jar and looked at me skeptically as I dipped my fingers in it. "Um, Alistair? Not that I think you'd try to kill me or anything, but… that's not going to kill me or anything, right? Because I'm pretty sure I can deal with the headache if that's the only solution."

I actually chuckled a little at that. "I promise if it starts to sear off your flesh or anything, I won't fight you if you want to stab me."

"What a relief," Nalissa murmured, closing her eyes as I drew a thick line with the salve under her left eye and angling it up to her temple. She opened that eye once I had moved on to the other, then wiggled her nose and sniffed. "I guess it doesn't smell so bad up close."

"And as an added bonus, it makes for some pretty fierce face paint," I joked as I drew the last line.

Nalissa opened her other eye and actually smiled. I hadn't noticed before, but her eyes were bright and sea-green and they were suddenly looking at me with a bit of admiration. "Wow, it really stopped hurting. That's actually pretty incredible, Alistair. Thank you."

Before I could answer, Morrigan made a hmph sound very much like her mother and said, "Truly he is a genius beyond compare for utilizing the work of someone much more intelligent."

Nalissa sighed and muttered that this was going to be a long trip. I just glared and started walking again, staring straight ahead. Blighted witch wouldn't even let me be distracted for a few moments. Yes, I definitely hated her.


	5. The Village

A/N: I hope I've been doing a decent job of capturing Alistair's voice for everyone so far! I'm mentally reading everything back to myself after I write it to try to make sure it matches, but I'm always open to suggestions if you guys have any. On another note, I've written a sort-of-prequel to this story if any of you might be interested in that; it's a Cousland/Gilmore fic called Once My Knight that is far longer than I meant it to be, but I liked it finished too much to try to remove anything. Give it a shot if it interests you, but I promise that's the only advertising I'll do in this fic because it does directly relate. XP

* * *

The village of Lothering was just on the outskirts of the Korcari Wilds, and it seemed strange to me that I hadn't seen it when I had come south with Duncan. We must have somehow skirted around it, but it didn't seem Lothering was lucky enough to have had its bandits do the same.

For once, Morrigan and I agreed on something: these brigands needed to be taught a lesson, and we had cut down two of them and seriously injured their leader before Nalissa agreed they had learned it. I was a little surprised though when she let them run away with the warning that if she ever saw them again, there would be no mercy.

I'm sure I was frowning a little when I looked at her and asked, "What did you do that for? Don't you think you should have turned them in?"

Nalissa just leaned out over the side of the stone bridge to look toward Lothering and gestured that I do the same. When I stood beside her, she pointed toward the entrance of the village, where a lone templar stood guard.

"There are no soldiers guarding Lothering," she pointed out. "Yet they drown in refugees. No one guards the people sleeping in the fields, and no one guards their own people from ill intent. I do not think there are soldiers left in this village."

"You're right," I realized. "How could you tell so quickly?"

Nalissa chuckled, shot me a mischievous look, and said, "Clearly you've never been to a salon."

"I don't even know what that is," I admitted.

Nalissa's eyes twinkled as she joked, "Mostly just an excuse for a lot of stir-crazy noblewomen and their bachelor sons to come and drink all of your best wine. The ones my mother hosted were usually bearable because the knights would help me escape when I couldn't bear it anymore. But Maker, when she took me with her to someone else's! The first one she ever dragged me to was lady Landra's and I was all of ten or twelve at the time. The last thing I wanted to be doing was wearing frilly dresses and listening to a bunch of old women I'd never met tell me how much I favored my _brother_ before trying to introduce me to their sons. You have _no idea_ how hard it is to keep a straight face when some pretentious little snot is trying to flirt with you while dribbling tomato juice down his front."

I surprised myself a little by laughing, really laughing, for the first time since Ostagar. "Replace 'tomato juice' with 'ale' and that sounds like how you might have fared at a Grey Warden party."

"Nothing like ale-drenched armor to set the mood," Nalissa snickered, shaking her head. "But I'm sure you can see why I learned at a very young age to find unguarded exits and pick locks."

"And which of these skills shall prove most useful in defeating an archdemon or this Loghain?" Morrigan cut in. Did she just wait for the moments I was starting to feel better to blindside me with snarky comments?

Nalissa seemed in a better mood though, at least until we starting talking about the plan of where to go from there and I asked if there might be any help for us from her home in Highever.

"Fergus led our army to Ostagar before Duncan recruited me," she said, though her eyes were far away. At the time, I assumed it was just worry for her brother that colored her voice. "There's no one left in the castle now that could lend us aid."

Eventually we established that we would go over our options once we had heard news from the village, but that didn't turn out to be as simple as we had assumed. When we entered the tavern Morrigan had mentioned, we found ourselves face-to-face with a group of Loghain's men. Though one of the Chantry sisters tried to intervene, there was no stopping the fight but she did manage to stay Nalissa's blade from killing the last man.

"Fine," she agreed to the priestess's request, watching with a fierce expression as the bloodied soldier got to his feet. "As long as you carry a message back to Loghain for me: we're coming for him, and none of your ilk is going to stop us."

The man ran like the Archdemon itself was on his heels, and with the look on Nalissa's blood-spattered face, I couldn't blame him. Suddenly it made me very glad she was on my side.

In the end, Lothering gave us two companions for our journey, the Orlesian lay-sister Leliana who I could only assume had had her brain addled from too much sacramental wine and a Qunari murderer who called himself Sten that made me wonder if brain-addling was contagious to make Nalissa talk the revered mother into sending him with us. I mean, it was one thing to let him out of the cage so he wouldn't be ripped apart helplessly by descending darkspawn, but actually trusting him to not murder us in our sleep seemed like a serious leap of faith.

I was so busy keeping an eye on the Qunari as we made to continue on our way that I didn't notice the mass of villagers between us and the road until one of them spoke. It seemed they had overheard Loghain's men in the pub identifying us as Wardens and wanted the reward on our heads for themselves—and their families. Most of them didn't even have weapons and it made me a little sick to think of fighting them.

Nalissa must have felt the same way, because she held her palms out toward them in something like a gesture of surrender to try to keep them calm. "I know things are horrible here," she assured them. "That's what we're trying to fix! We have to defeat the Archdemon!"

Another of the peasants shook his head. "Ain't no worry of mine if that thing's real or not. Teyrn Loghain will finish it if it is. But I've got a wife needs medicine and a boy needs food and the reward for you lot will give 'em that."

"Please don't make us do this," Nalissa tried again. "Look, just let me try to help you! I have five sovereigns in my purse—"

"The reward on your head's five _hundred_ sovereigns, and as much for the other one," the man said, jerking his head to indicate that meant me. "Enough to buy us all passage somewhere away from all this. I'm sorry, Warden."

And then they attacked, and we did what we had been trained to do, and never in my life had I felt sicker about it. I tried to use only my shield and the pommel of my sword, but Morrigan's magic had no such restraint and the sickening crunches as the Qunari drove his fists into their bodies made me think he didn't either. In the end, at least three of them lay dead and I tried not to look too closely at the others. The look on Nalissa's face as we stepped over them to get to the road said exactly what I was thinking: neither of us had signed on for something like _this_.


	6. The Nightmare

I awoke to the sound of a pained gasp and someone thrashing about, and I sat straight up half expecting the Qunari or Morrigan to have finally driven a knife into someone's chest. Instead I saw Nalissa clutching at her bedroll and muttering incoherently, clearly in the grip of some kind of nightmare. That was something I understood all too clearly; between dreams of Ostagar and the archdemon, I hadn't exactly had a lot of restful nights lately either.

It struck me that she would have no idea about those however, and so I sat quietly and waited while her dream wore on. I thought of trying to wake her, but it wouldn't work anyway if she was dreaming of the archdemon and I wasn't really sure how she would react to being shaken awake. She probably still had her daggers on her, after all.

Nalissa awoke with a jolt, breathing like she had just sprinted a great distance. Her panicked eyes found first the fire and then me, and I explained what was happening as gently as I could to calm her down. Once she understood, she pushed her hair back from her face wearily and nodded, thanking me. I smiled and made a joke then suggested we pull up camp, but she looked over at the still-sleeping Leliana and shook her head.

"Let's give them a little while yet," Nalissa suggested. "Just because we have evil dragon lords talking in our heads doesn't mean we should punish them for it."

I nodded and looked into the fire with a sigh, and she came to sit closer to me, a serious look on her face. "You haven't really talked about it," she said quietly so that we wouldn't wake anyone else. "You haven't spoken much at all since Ostagar, except the occasional joke to pretend you're okay. But that isn't good for you, you know." Her eyes shone both with the firelight and some kind of understanding as she added, "Duncan wouldn't want you to blame yourself."

And then I was off, talking about Duncan and Ostagar and my feelings of guilt until even I felt like a whining child, but Nalissa just kept nodding sympathetically and speaking a few kind words whenever I stopped to draw breath. I hoped she wasn't just patronizing me; that would really make me feel like a fool. Finally I asked, "What about you? Have you ever… lost someone like that?"

An edge of pain showed in her eyes, but she tried to hide it with a faint smile. "I suppose I should take my own advice, shouldn't I? Stop joking long enough to talk about how I really feel?"

Nalissa looked down and started picking at one of the studs on her gauntlet, and at first I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she took a deep breath and looked me straight in the eyes, and I could have sworn hers shone a little more than normal like they had unshed tears in them.

"The truth is there's no help for us in Highever for more reason than just the men we sent to Ostagar. The night after Fergus marched out with them, our castle was attacked. We were betrayed by the Arl of Amaranthine, Rendon Howe… my father's friend."

I had no idea what to say to that. I'm pretty sure I just sat there with my mouth open until she went on with her story.

"Highever and Amaranthine were supposed to march together, but Howe told us his men were delayed. After our soldiers were gone, he attacked my father and let his men into the castle. I awoke to one of the servants coming to plead for help right before Howe's men shot him in the back. I got my armor on and ran into the hall, found more of them trying to break down the door to my parents' room, and I killed them all. My mother was alive, but when we ran to check my brother's room… They must have gone there first. He had a wife and eight-year-old son and neither could have held a sword even if they'd had one."

"Andraste's mercy," I whispered, suddenly feeling like the bastard son of a hurlock for spending so much time talking about Ostagar.

"Oren used to beg me to teach him to use a sword," Nalissa went on, lost in the memory. "I always told him swords weren't my forte, that his mother would skin us both if I tried… Maybe if I had just shown him how to hold a blade…"

I put my hand over hers and squeezed it gently, surprising even myself, and she looked up at me again as I insisted, "You can't blame yourself for that. If there were trained soldiers bursting in the door, nothing such a small boy could have done would have saved them."

Nalissa swallowed hard and nodded, but it seemed her story still wasn't quite over. "We went to find my father after that. We saved the Cousland sword from the vault before Howe could get his hands on it and ran for the gates in the great hall. Some of the knights had barred them again to keep the rest of Howe's men out, and they said my father was injured and had gone to the servants' entrance to find us and try to make an escape."

Nalissa's hands shook as she kept going: "Father was bleeding out on the floor of the larder when we found him. Duncan showed up right after we did, said the castle was surrounded and we would have to move fast. Father couldn't. He told Duncan he could have me as a recruit if he just got me to safety, and Mother stayed with him, swearing she would kill anyone that tried to follow us to buy the time we needed. And now with King Cailan dead, Howe is free to tell whatever story he wants to justify that Highever should be his."

When she finally fell silent, I had no idea what to say. How did you respond when someone told you a story as personal as that? How had she known what to say when I was talking about Duncan? I racked my brain, but all I could manage was, "Maker, I'm so sorry."

Nalissa just tried to smile encouragingly, but the attempt was weak. "So I do understand, Alistair. I lost my father to treachery, too."

I didn't have the words to express how much it meant to me that she not only didn't hate me for whining, but also knew how deeply I felt Duncan's loss. I hoped she could see it somehow. Then I heard Leliana beginning to stir on the other side of the fire and realized my hand was still over Nalissa's.

Standing up quickly, I cleared my throat and tried to pretend I had just needed to stretch my back. Nalissa stood up too and abruptly asked, "Alistair, could you teach me to use a sword?"

I actually just stared at her for a second, not sure I had heard right. "What do you mean?"

She knelt by the rolled mat she used as a pillow and pulled from it a longsword of gleaming grey iron with an ornate rounded pommel. "It's my family's ancestral blade. Nan used to say Calenhad himself once wielded it, but it means enough to me to know that my father did. I've never fought with anything weightier than a dagger, and on the way to Ostagar Duncan said he would teach me, but… Well, I know it's not the same as fighting with a sword and shield, but do you think there's anything _you_ could teach me?"

Maybe I shouldn't have, but I felt ridiculously warm and happy inside to have just been compared to Duncan. I smiled and retrieved my own sword, then pointed over toward an open area near where the dwarven merchants we had saved outside Lothering had set up camp. "It's been a while since I fought without a shield, but I'm sure I can at least show you the basics."


End file.
